Being transplanted to San Diego from Boston was enough of an impetus for me to finally stake out a a claim in the blog-o-sphere. Here you'll find whatever strange thoughts meander out of my mind and into the ether.

Friday, October 21, 2005

I've been following the Tom DeLay indictment saga with great interest. I'm sure that almost every blog left of center has had something recently. I'm trying not to overlap stuff on blogs in my circles, so I'm skipping the mugshot commentary. Aces Full of Links and Danspotting both have that angle covered nicely. I wanted to do my own take on things and then I thought, "Someone should make a parody blog and pretend it is DeLay's!". Someone did. A couple someone's did, in fact. 'The Daily DeLay' is a PAC based blog following the issue. 'From the Desk of Tom DeLay' pretends to be his personal blog. So much for that idea. Fortunately, while I was doing my research, I stumbled across DeLay's REAL site...At last, something worthy of comment that I haven't seen anyone I read doing yet. On Tom's web page he prominently features the central component of his defense as well as links for how you can take action to stop this "partisan distraction". Here is the ceterpiece of the page.

Dear Friend, As you probably know, the very partisan Travis County D.A. recently manufactured an indictment against me that is based on charges from the 2002 Texas State House elections. These charges are groundless and false. I am completely innocent. Just as Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and other public officials have defeated similar attacks from this D.A., I will prove his allegations are baseless and without merit. Despite this partisan distraction, I will continue to represent you and fight for the interests of our community. I hope you’ll take a moment now to read more about exactly what is happening and why. Thank you for visiting and I look forward to keeping you up to date on our fight against this out of control DA.

Did you get all that? Poor Tom DeLay is the victim of baseless partisan attacks. I suppose it might even be true. But it's hard to muster sympathy for a man nicknamed "The Hammer" who uses threats against his own party members to get his way. I'm pretty sure he lost the moral high ground long ago.

The reason I say that it 'might' be true is that if you follow the link to "The Facts" you will find a large variety of reasons why the prosecutor, Ronnie Earle, is just out to get him, but only one legal argument that seems to have any merit. According to the site, the conspiracy provision was added to the law in question in 2003. The actions he has been indicted for happened in 2002. That's all according to DeLay.

The other stuff on the 'facts' page is slanted commentary and links to articles in such objective publications as "The Washington Times" and "The National Review". It calls these articles proof that this is "widely recognized as a wholly manufactured political accusation against Congressman DeLay". And yet, there are litereally hundreds of condemning quotes out there. One would think that Mr. DeLay would have posted everything he could in support of himself. And then there is his 'summary' on the DA. He lists other failed prosecutions in the past against Republicans and points out various criticisms of him. After reading that, how could anyone not thing the guy was a partisan hack?

So, I did what any responsible person would do. I went on a search for more information. I found several articles about Ronnie Earle. He has indicted 15 politicians prior to DeLay. Care to guess at the split? It was a 12-3 split. Pretty partisan, huh? Oh. Did I mention the 12 were DEMOCRATS? Everything I have found on Ronnie Earle suggests that he is a principled, ethical man. He was an Eagle Scout. He teaches classes on building community. Early in his political career, he filed a case against HIMSELF for filing papers a day late. He said he had done wrong and did not merit special treatment. He was fined $212 for the infraction.

So, DeLay's site appears to be designed to do nothing more than delude himself and the masses who support him. It has a thin veneer of credibility. Just enough to convince anyone who was lookin to be convinced, but not enough to convince the impartial or the skeptical. He'll probably beat the rap and resume his hateful ways. But maybe America will get lucky and there will be consequences or his actions.

Who is "briwei"?

I've been described before as a "very silly man". Granted, I was the one doing the describing, but I'm an excellent judge of character.
I find it hard to label myself in many other ways as the thing I identify with most is making people smile and laugh.
I have two great kids and a wonderful wife and you will likely see things about them crop up in these pages. Family is another big theme with me. I'll try not to be a shameless braggart about my family, but I do consider them pretty special.
I welcome intelligent discourse and even *gasp* opposing views. Please try to keep it civil, however.